


Ruination

by lightthornn



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, Jordelia, Kissing, herondaisy, just a makeout fic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightthornn/pseuds/lightthornn
Summary: “James?” Cordelia asked, tilting her head as if she was confused. She opened her mouth to say something else, but she was cut off by James breaking the space between them and crashing his lips into hers.
Relationships: Cordelia Carstairs/James Herondale
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Ruination

**Author's Note:**

> This is for you guys herondaisy nation <3

“Dance with me,” Cordelia whispered. 

James nodded slowly, taking one more sip of his drink before handing it to Matthew. He didn’t really expect it to be full by the time he came back, but he didn’t really mind. 

He glanced down at his bare wrist as he took her hand. Grace had taken it off days ago, and he wasn’t sure of much. But he was sure that something had changed when he was around Cordelia. Suddenly, it was like fire dancing over his skin at even the briefest touch. 

It didn’t help that she was dressed in a deep green gown that hugged her body in all the right places, making it hard for James to look away and him wanting to loosen his collar. 

They were still engaged, but it was an act to everyone but them and their closest friends. If you asked James, he would tell you that they were doing a great job. 

“We have everyone fooled,” Cordelia said, quiet enough so only he could hear, as if she had been reading his mind. “Look at them,” 

When James looked around the edges of the ballroom, he saw people looking at them and whispering. His parents were looking at them with smiles on their faces. He turned away, looking right at Cordelia. Looking at her was even worse. Any second, he knew he was going to drown into the depths of her eyes that he had always found so lovely. 

“Are you okay?” She asked as the music started, only a distant hum in the back of his mind. The two of them started to dance, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. 

“I’m fine,” he said, spinning her around, watching as her skirts flowed around her legs, the soft fabric just brushing against him. 

From the outside, they looked like any other couple. Dancing, hopelessly in love with each other and eagerly awaiting their wedding. Everyone in the room had their secrets. They would never know the one that rested on him like the weight of the world. 

“It’s lovely music,” Cordelia noted. 

James didn’t care about the music, but he nodded slowly in agreement. 

He spun her around again, and the light hit her just right. His breath caught in his throat and everything seemed to go in slow motion as her hair flowed behind her and she smiled at him, her eyes sparkling. He would do anything if only it meant that he would see that smile one more time.  _ I love her _ , he thought, not even thinking anything of it. It was a fact, a simple thing that he should know. He was in love with her, and he didn’t know how he hadn’t known that. 

She was back in front of him and she laughed quietly. “You look nice tonight,” she noted, glancing at his outfit. 

“So do you. You look beautiful,” he said. “Really.” 

Cordelia smiled softly and turned her gaze to the ground. “Nobody can hear us, you know. We don’t have to lie when it’s just us.” 

“What if I want to?” The words flew out of his mind before he could stop them, but he didn’t take them back. She had no reason to think that it wasn’t a lie. But since she did, he would be the biggest liar to ever walk the Earth. 

Cordelia shook her head. “You don’t.” From the expression that appeared across her features, he was certain that she was done talking to him, which he hated. Her voice was his favorite. 

As soon as the music ended, Cordelia moved to step away, mumbling something about Lucie expecting her. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to him. She sucked in a breath and met his eyes. 

He leaned in close. “What do you say we fool them some more?” he whispered. She shivered and leaned a little back from him. 

“What do you mean?” Her voice was shaking. 

“Follow me,” he turned and made his way to the doors, not quite knowing what he was doing. James liked to say that he knew a lot, but when he was with her, it was almost like he lost all sense that he might have left. When he looked over his shoulder, she was following him, carefully moving through the crowds of people. 

They were both alone in the hallway, and even though they were only a few feet apart, it was much, much too far of a distance. “Daisy,” he said. 

“James?” Cordelia asked, tilting her head as if she was confused. She opened her mouth to say something else, but she was cut off by James breaking the space between them and crashing his lips into hers. 

She was still for a moment, and for a horrifying second, James thought she wasn’t going to kiss him back. But then she leaned up to him, threading her fingers into his hair and kissing him back just as hard. 

Kissing her was a drug he could never get enough of. 

He cupped her face with one of his hands; her skin was soft, and he brushed her cheek with his thumb while his other hand found his waist. 

The whispering room had been a blur, neither of them knowing if it was real or not. 

But then again, neither of them knew if it was real now. 

James didn’t know what Cordelia felt about him. It was likely that she was under the impression that they were just putting on a show for everyone else who was there. But she was kissing him back, and he wasn’t going to give that up for anything, nor was he going to stop things before she did. 

“James,” she mumbled against his lips. The sound of his name coming from her sent a warm wave over his entire body, and he pulled away a small distance, both of them only inches away from each other. 

“Layla.” At first, he didn’t realize what he had said. It had flown out of his mouth on instinct, like it was the one thing he was ever meant to say. 

Her eyes went wide, and they were so dark that he could hardly tell where her pupils ended and started. She stared at him for a long moment, looking like she was examining his face, trying to figure something out. 

She grabbed his arm and turned, pulling him after her quickly. He didn’t know where she was taking him, but he would go anywhere with her. 

On the way there, Matthew stopped them, clearly drunk. It was one of the few moments that James let himself be annoyed with his  _ parabatai _ .

“Where are you off to?” He asked, his speech slurred. 

There had been many times when James had noticed this, and he had told Matthew to stop drinking. Now, the only thing on his mind was wherever Cordelia was taking him. 

“James and I have something to do,” Cordelia answered quickly. James noticed her adjusting her hair. He hadn’t even noticed that it had been messed up in the hallway. 

Matthew narrowed his dark eyes at them. “It looks like you’ve been caught in a fight with a demon,” 

“We haven’t,” James said. “Now, we really ought to go. It’s wedding planning,” 

Matthew’s gaze darted down to their interlocked hands and he frowned, reaching into his jacket and taking a sip from his flask. “I thought you were letting Aunt Tessa and Uncle Will take care of most of that,” 

He really wished that being drunk would mess with Matthew’s memory sometimes. “They asked us to take care of something.” 

While Matthew didn’t seem to believe them, he shrugged, stepping past them. “I need to go and find Lucie.” 

“You do that,” James said, watching his retreating back, glad the second he turned the corner. Before he could turn, Cordelia was pulling him behind her again. 

She pushed a door open and slammed it shut behind him. They were in the library. Cordelia had once found him in one at a party very similar to this one. As soon as the door was shut, she reached a hand behind her, turning the lock, and then she kissed him with even more fire than she had when they had been in the hall. 

Her arms were wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer and pressing her body up against his, doing things to him that he hadn’t even known were possible. 

In a swift movement, he turned both of them around, backing her into a wall and putting his hands beside her head, moving his lips to her jawline, and her neck. When she let out a gasp, he pushed the sleeve of her dress down, kissing down her shoulder and then back up to her lips. 

James wondered why he hadn’t been kissing her for his entire life, because his body had never felt as right as it did then. Even when he had been completely at ease with his friends and family, or when he had killed his first demon and felt like he had filled the role he had been born to fill. Those were nothing compared to this… this kiss that made him feel like he could never get enough. 

The heat running through him was enough to burn him from the inside out. He would let it kill him. 

Her hair was soft against his neck. He had never thought of hair as something that would exhilarate him, but hers did. Everything about Cordelia made him feel different than he ever had. If Grace had been an uneasy chill and content, Cordelia was a warmth that made him unsure in the best way possible. 

“My Majnun…” Cordelia whispered. 

James pulled back and stared into her eyes. Poets wrote about eyes blue as the sea, or brown like honey, but if he was to write about any eyes, he would write about her black ones. They held the mysteries of the world, and James wanted to find every clue he could to solve them. There was something in her eyes as she looked at him. He couldn’t put a name on it, but it spent a shiver down his spine. 

“Layla,” he said again, like he had in the hallway. His breathing was shaky and unsteady, but it was the unsteady of something new and knowing it would be the best thing to ever happen to him. 

“Are we only putting on a show?” She asked, and it was almost hard to concentrate when he looked at her, with her red lips and her hair a mess, her eyes even darker than they usually would be. “We are without an audience.” 

“No,” he said firmly, cupping her face and stroking her cheek with his thumb. “I am not putting on a show. Is this a one man show or no show at all?” 

Cordelia met his eyes like she was trying to reach into the deepest depths of his soul, searching through everything he had hidden so carefully. “The people do love a show. Tragic; there isn’t one.” 

“There isn’t?” he needed to be sure. 

“There never was.” Cordelia said with a shrug. “We both knew that. We didn’t care.” 

Then she was kissing him again. Except this time, both of them knew it wasn’t a show, and it was glorious in any way something could be. 

Her fingers fumbled for his jacket, and James helped her take it off. She tossed it to the other side of the room, her hands immediately going to the buttons of his shirt. 

“Layla,” he whispered against her neck as she slid his shirt off, running her hands over him. “Layla.” he looked up and met her eyes once more. “I am ruinously in love with you.” 

“And I you,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around his waist, her skirts hiking up. He stared down at her legs, that he had never seen bare before, the sight leaving him unable to breathe. 

She giggled lightly, and he knew then that if this was ruination, he would welcome it with wide arms. He would die for this. 

Her tongue was in his mouth and James had never been so certain of anything. But as he held her up by her thighs and she arched his body up to hers, he never wanted this to end. Desire flooded through him like a dam breaking through, and he wanted more, even though he wasn’t certain what that was. He only had images of bare skin and kissing her everywhere. 

Cordelia pulled away again. “I think we need to take a look at one of the bedrooms.” 

James couldn’t have agreed with something more. 


End file.
